


spread your leaves

by multicorn



Series: an affair and an adventure [1]
Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-03
Updated: 2013-03-03
Packaged: 2017-12-04 03:22:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/705951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/multicorn/pseuds/multicorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That first coffee date.  Conversation, and comfort, and discovery too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	spread your leaves

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to misqueue and mockanddee for cheerleading and suggestions :)

Every day in the first few weeks at NYADA is bordering on overload.  There are classes and clubs and stages and studios, a whole world he’s always dreamed of and never gotten to know.  Kurt’s surrounded by so many different people, girls wearing all sorts of interesting fashions, other boys that hold each others’ eyes and sometimes hands, new people, new things, almost everywhere he looks.

He feels like he’s come out of a shell and can’t stop turning around and around in wonder, because there are too many things in the world to see them all, until he gets dizzy and ends up falling like a colt, legs tangled, in a heap on the ground.  Immobilized for a moment with eyes still open, and a head that’s tipped back to the sky, and if most of the time the light is just bright then sometimes in a flash it’s blinding.  He can’t bear to look away.

~*~

Kurt’s scheduled to meet Adam at the campus coffee shop at six.  He skids up to the door and ducks inside almost an hour early, because he can work on his homework there as well as anywhere else, and even though this isn’t exactly an interview or the first day of class, he still wants to make a good impression.  He’s looking around for a place to sit when he hears a familiar accent calling his name.

“Hey, Kurt!”

Kurt turns towards the sound and sees Adam jogging up to him, a careless grin crinkling his eyes and a ridiculous red beanie covering most of his gorgeous hair.  An unfamiliar warmth is blooming in his stomach; attraction and comfort newly mixed with nervousness, and the combination is so unsteady that he has to let himself fall forward if he wants to keep any balance at all.

“Adam!  Sorry, were we supposed meet earlier, because I thought it wasn’t till six or I would’ve been here - “

“You’re good.”  Adam’s smile is easy, relaxed, and Kurt needs to learn how to do that too, starting yesterday, and there isn’t  _time_.  ”I’m just early.  I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss the time if you showed up early too.”

“Oh,” Kurt blushes, and he fidgets uselessly with his bag strap.  Being wanted by a stranger is so new that he doesn’t quite know what to do with it, but it definitely feels good.  “Shall we…?”

“I’m sitting over there.”  Adam leads him to a table, weaving in front of him through the crowded space, and Kurt can’t help but squeal silently once his back is turned.

Kurt settles his books on the table, and tries to sneak a peek what Adam was reading before he puts his things away.  Plays and art books, it looks like, not music, and it makes him curious because he doesn’t know much about the guy still, but he does know that he started a singing group.  He’s still surreptitiously trying to make out the titles when Adam says, “can I get you some coffee?”

Kurt squirms.  “Um…”  Adam’s standing over him, at the table again, stupid arms and stupid eyes and it’s  _distracting_  okay, and seriously, he has never gone out before with someone whom he wasn’t already practiced at talking with on autopilot.  How do people  _do_  this?

“It’s a simple question.”  Adam looks like he’s silently laughing, like, almost all the time, but not at him.

“If I say yes, does that mean this is definitely a date?”

Adam’s eyebrows go up in surprise.  “I thought it was already.”

Kurt raises one eyebrow right back, eloquent with if  _I’m asking you a question, that means you’re supposed to answer_.

Luckily Adam is quick enough to get the point.  “Okay, if you need confirmation, then yes.  This is definitely a date.”

“Good to know.”  Kurt smiles, and Adam just put a hand on his shoulder, it’s warm and heavy and… “I’d like a grande nonfat mocha,” he says.   _And for you to go away, so I can think.  Or to not go away, ever, because even without coffee I’m starting to feel warm and safe again._

“Wait here,” Adam says, and Kurt jitters but stays put, watching the other people in the cafe just a little bit and Adam’s back as he stands in line and gets their orders maybe more than a little but hopefully not too much after all.

When Adam comes back to him with the drinks - “unambiguous date mocha for you, and a tea for me,” Kurt thanks him, and then of course he asks, “so what was that question about anyway?”

Kurt feels his face burn, and tries to wave the question away.  “Oh, nothing, it’s silly.”

“Well, but now I’m intrigued,” Adam says.  “So you have to tell.”

“Well,” Kurt says, and takes a sip of his mocha; it’s so much better than the Lima Bean’s, which doesn’t feel like a betrayal because most of the coffee that he drinks here in New York is, but he just can’t avoid comparing them right now, and he flinches from the thought.  “It’s just that my ex-boyfriend and I used to pay for each others’ coffees all the time before we were dating, and then at one point I thought maybe we actually  _were_  dating when we weren’t, and it was awkward for a little while.  But I shouldn’t be telling you about this, sorry.”

“Why not?”

Kurt can’t believe it.  “Because I’m on a date with  _you_?”

“So?”  Adam shrugs.  “I want to hear about your life and get to know you, and if he was part of it that’s fine.  So tell me, how did you guys meet?”

That part’s still fun to think about, even after everything that’s come since; he can’t listen to “Teenage Dream” anymore but he can remember the staircase and the hallway and their lightning-fast friendship with fondness, and it’s long enough ago that somehow it doesn’t hurt.  “That’s actually a good story,” Kurt says, and he can’t quite suppress a smile.  “So.  I was in show choir in high school - “

“Of course you were.”

“Don’t interrupt,” Kurt says, and waits for Adam to nod.  “Okay.  And he was in show choir too, but not at my school - he was actually the lead singer in one of the schools we were going to compete against at Sectionals.  And I went to spy on the other team - “

Adam’s choking with laughter.  “And that’s how you met!?  That’s great.  It’s like the Romeo and Juliet of show choir.  Or, I don’t know, Romeo and Romeo, it doesn’t really work.”

“Yes.  Well.  And then they both died.”

“You seem to be doing fine though,” Adam says.

Kurt sips his coffee, and lets the taste fill his mouth, sweet and bitter and rich and complex and warm.  “I think I am.”  He sets the cup down, and leans forward.  “So.  That was my story, why don’t you tell me yours?”

“What do you want to know?”

Kurt drums his fingers on the table.  So many options, but he can’t think of where to start.  “Hmm.  How about, how did you start the Adam’s Apples?”

“You really are going for the low-hanging fruit.”

Kurt doesn’t choke on his coffee, he’s had practice.  “That wasn’t even a good pun.”

“Can’t help it,” Adam says.  “Anyway, I’m actually a theater tech major.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, we exist!”

“I know!  I was just surprised because you sing so well.”

“That’s sweet of you to say, but I really don’t.  It’s fine,” he says, waving off the beginning of Kurt’s protestations.  “I love doing lights and sound and set stuff.  Not everything has to be about performing all the time!  But I mean, I love singing and dancing too, and especially being here at NYADA and not getting to perform at all, it was just kind of frustrating after a while.”  Kurt can just imagine; he remembers three years of swaying in the background with the New Directions, after all.  “So I spoke with a few friends who felt the same way, and I got everything together to start the Apples!”  He’s so excited that his tea’s in danger of being knocked over any minute now, and his beanie’s almost falling off his head.  “All majors, no auditions, and we just do whatever songs people want to do.  There are music majors who just like being silly and having a place to unwind, and there are, like, education majors who really just want to sing in a group at all….  And I just gave you the whole recruitment spiel even though you’ve already agreed to join.  Sorry.”

Kurt sits back, reeling a bit from the intensity, and is reminded, quite strongly and suddenly, of the New Directions.  They weren’t really supposed to sing either, but they had so much fun.  “It was nice to hear, actually.  I think it’s sweet how much you care.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of like my baby.  I’m really glad to have you in it too.”

They smile at each other, and Kurt’s breath catches with the intent in Adam’s eyes.  Adam lays a hand on the table, uncurled from his coffee cup, and carefully Kurt puts his hand over it, and Adam’s fingers curl around his.  He lets himself relax into the warmth of it, breathe in breathe out, and melts just a little bit more.

~*~

They talk till they’ve finished their coffee and tea, and still don’t want to stop, so they nurse their empty cups secretly, reluctant to have to move and maybe have to part.  After maybe an hour has passed they’re discussing stage combat majors, who Kurt thinks are like jocks and Adam says it probably comes from too much love for hitting things.

“They think they own the place,” says Adam.  “Which is ridiculous, considering.”

“I know!  Like, really?  You guys will be lucky to get work as stunt doubles when you graduate.”

“But you’ve got to admit the fighting is fun.”

Kurt shudders.  “High school’s given me too much of that type of fun for a lifetime.”

~*~

They go for a walk, aimless and exploratory, the tall buildings of the city around them, Kurt still feels sometimes, like a dream.  He looks sideways up at Adam once in a while, and it’s all just so perfect, fun and conversation and a cute boy so close beside you that you can almost feel his body heat through the cold winter air.  And they talk about the ballerinas.

“They won’t even talk to the other dance majors,” says Adam, “it’s super weird.”

“It doesn’t even make sense,” muses Kurt.  “They’re dancers, not cheerleaders, I’m sure they weren’t all the ‘mean girls’ in high school.  What happened to them?”

“Ballet makes you crazy, I guess.  Something about the pain and trying to live up to that standard of perfection.”

“Maybe some of them were just waiting for the chance.  Like my roommate, Rachel.”

“Oh?  What does she do?”

Kurt sighs.  “I guess that’s not fair.  She’s not mean, just annoying sometimes, but she thinks she has this rivalry with the ballet girls, and it’s crazy like something out of a movie.  I thought she might calm down some now that we’re finally out of Ohio, but it’s like somehow living in New York has only turned her drama up to eleven.  And then she’s always off running around with her new boyfriend anyway.  I love her, but I need some new friends.”

“I should introduce you to some of the other tech people, definitely,” Adam says, hands swinging close between them, not quite holding but brushing every once in a while.  “Most of them are really cool, I think you’d like them.”

“Sure,” says Kurt, and then he has a thought.  “Do some of them do costuming too?”

They do, Adam says, though he clearly doesn’t (he doesn’t know much about fashion either), but he is acquainted with some of the people who work in the costume shop, for whatever that’s worth.

They wander until the stars start to come out, and then they go to get dinner at a little Thai place Adam knows.  And they just keep talking.

~*~

The food is so good - spicy but not too much, the sweetness of the peanut sauce a little unfamiliar.  He’s been getting to try new food in the city for months, of course, but somehow it all tastes just a little bit  _more_  when there’s a boy looking at him from across the table.

Eventually they get onto the subject of classes.  Kurt’s schedule is so weird to arrange, what with him coming in during the spring semester instead of the fall, but that might give him some opportunities too, so he’s been trying to play with the possibilities of prerequisites and possible paths to a degree pretty much since he got in.  And Adam’s a senior here, so maybe he knows about things, and it turns out actually that he does have at least a secondhand opinion on a  _lot_  of the professors at their school.

“Have you heard of Cassandra July?” Adam asks.  “She just might be the most infamous professor in all of NYADA.”

“In the whole school?” says Kurt.  “I knew she was crazy, but I was still hoping there might be even crazier people whom no one dared to talk about on the message boards.  I mean, Rachel had her for Dance 101 in the fall and she actually came home crying from it a whole bunch of times.”

Adam grimaces sympathetically.  “That really sucks.”

Kurt considers while he eats.  “I’m not sure what I think, though.  She was really nice to me the one time I met her; she showed me some stretches, and she even gave Rachel and I plane tickets to go home and see our high school’s production of Grease.”

“Plane tickets?  That’s a lot, man, what did you two do to impress her so much?”

“I think it might have been part of some diabolical scheme?  I never quite figured it out…”

“Wow.”

“So anyway,” Kurt says, and kicks him under the table; it’s mostly to get his attention, but Adam’s foot hooks right back around his, and then he’s almost distracted for a bit but not quite.  “I know Rachel hates her, but I mean, Rachel unconditionally loved our high school choir director too, and he never even let me sing.  So what do you think, would you recommend that I take her class?  Because I think I can still work it if I take LeClair’s section instead, but I’m not sure.”

“Everyone says you shouldn’t take her class if you can avoid it.  But for you?  I might actually recommend it, as long as you’re careful.”

“Why is that?”

“I had her for Dance 101 completely randomly, and I took her for 102 again on purpose.  I would’ve taken more classes with her, too, but I can’t really since I don’t have space for any more dance classes….  But it’s true, she’s not just critical, she really is mean.  There’s a personal viciousness in some of what she does.  But it was really useful for me - maybe that doesn’t make sense - “

“No, I get it,” says Kurt, thinking of Sue Sylvester and dumpsters and everything he ever faced in McKinley’s halls.

Adam offers him a bite of sticky rice, and gives him the fork too so he doesn’t have to lean over.  He says, pensively, “In the end she taught me almost everything I know about dance.”

Which is interesting.  Very much so.  But still not as much as Adam sitting across from him, through coffee and wandering and dinner and now dessert, bringing up, slowly, all the more little tendrils of interest and affection.  “So that’s how you know I have a good plié.”

Kurt only intended it as a quiet tease, but Adam’s laugh is startlingly loud.  “You know that I didn’t actually mean your form, right?”

Kurt licks the whipped cream off his spoon and points it at Adam.  “How scandalous!  I’m shocked.”

Adam laughs back at him some more, and mostly it’s fun, but he thinks that he can see the desire in it too.  And he wants to tease, wants to feel it, to be sure, wants to do this all right and everything.  His first date in New York, his first date that feels as nervous and strange as a date probably should.  He doesn’t want to stop now, at all.

It’s time for them to get out of the restaurant now.  And as they’re walking down the street to the subway station, he feels his hand warm and happy in Adam’s again, and tugs on it to stop them for a minute.  “I had a really good time tonight,” he says with a coy excited little smirk, and Adam looks at him, smiles back.

“Is that so?”  Adam’s hand on his cheek is firm, and he leans up into it and slides past.  Adam’s leaning down too, and the slightly moist touch of his lips feels so good, like rainfall after a drought.  He opens his mouth just a little bit, sighs, and Adam’s bottom lip is dragged inside.  This is a type of food too…

Adam lets go of him again eventually; his breathing is heavier, Kurt notices with pride.  And he’s never done anything like this before, but he wants, he wants, and he’s brave enough now to take.  So he feels the city rush by and the blood run in his veins, and asks, “aren’t you going to invite me home?”

Adam’s smile is as warm and  _kind_  as it’s been all evening when he says, “I would, if I thought you wanted me to.”

Adam’s hand is still in his from the kiss; he swings it and says, “you’ll never know unless you try.”

“Well, Kurt.  Would you like to come back to my apartment with me?  And spend the night?”

“I would.”


End file.
